Date: 1744

"Men perish in advance, as if the sun / Should set ere noon, in eastern oceans drown'd; / If fit, with dim ILLUSTRIOUS to compare, / The sun's meridian with the soul of man."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"Can man by Reason's beam be led astray?"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"Dive to the bottom of his soul, the base / Sustaining all, what find we? Knowledge, love. / As light and heat essential to the sun, / These to the soul."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"I see, / I feel a grandeur in the Passions too, / Which speaks their high descent, and glorious end; / Which speaks them rays of an eternal fire."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"Yet still, through their disgrace [the passions'], no feeble ray / Of greatness shines, and tells us whence they fell: / But these (like that fallen monarch [Adam] when reclaim'd) / When Reason moderates the rein aright, / Shall re-ascend, remount their former sphere, / Where once they soar'd il...

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"In Lust's dominion, and in Passion's storm, / Truth's system broken, scatter'd fragments lay: / (As light in chaos, glimmering through the gloom)."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"Life animal is nurtured by the sun; / Thrives on his bounties, triumphs in his beams. / Life rational subsists on higher food, / Triumphant in His beams who made the day."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: November 1752, 1791

"When up the imperceptible ascent / Of growing years, led by thy hand, I rose, / Perception's gradual light, that ever dawns / Insensibly to day, thou didst vouchsafe, / And teach me by that reason thou inspir'dst."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: March 1756

"The thought-kindling light, / Thy prime production, darts upon my mind / Its vivifying beams, my heart illumines, / And fills my soul with gratitude and Thee."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: 1759

"Beware of Self-deceit, that wily cheat, / Which blinds bright Intellect with vain Conceit; / Conceit sees Nothing in its real Light, / All Things alike delude its cheated Sight."

— Marriott, Thomas (d. 1766)